Scripture is Sufficient for Preaching
Few things impact the health of the church more than the Sunday morning sermon. Good preaching bolsters right doctrine, comforts the depressed, corrects the straying, and motivates the apathetic. The ongoing growth of individual believers is in many ways dependent on faithful preaching week by week. Conversely, few things are as detrimental to Christian growth as is a steady diet of poor preaching. Sermons that fail to nourish the soul with biblical truth fall far short of God’s ideal for the ministry of preaching.
A central distinction between edifying preaching and worthless preaching is the preacher’s own understanding of what Scripture is. Does he see Scripture as his only reliable storehouse of truth, or does he buttress his preaching primarily with his opinions and ideas? What’s his starting point: Scripture or his next hobby horse? A pastor who truly believes God’s Word is sufficient will dedicate himself to searching it alone for truth, and he will ground his preaching firmly in it. One who fails to give Scripture its proper place fails to feed his flock with the only food that can satisfy. And his people suffer. Many Mennonite churches waver for lack of clear, biblical preaching.
Biblicism is, in fact, the ultimate litmus test for whether or not a man’s preaching meets God’s criteria. This is the central notion behind the apostle Paul’s command to Timothy that he “Preach the Word!” Nothing else is expected—or permitted—than preaching the Word. Everything in a sermon must be geared toward helping the hearers understand God’s Word. They should be left on a higher plane than before, knowing more of who God is, what He has done for them, and what He expects them as His redeemed children. The end goal is deeper relationship with God, but that relationship is indivisible from what He has told us in His Word. Thus the preacher’s responsibility is to look to Scripture alone to lead his people toward God.
But not everyone named a preacher preaches the Word. Even men who are easy to listen to may fail to actually edify their people. Good speakers are not always good students of Scripture. Many of our own popular speakers are known more for their sensationalism than for their clear biblical exposition. The great test of whether or not a man is an effective preacher is not the number of people who show up to hear him preach, nor the number of views his videos receive, nor the number of books he has written. It isn’t a compelling personality that makes a great preacher, nor smooth speech, nor inspiring leadership. While we may look for all of these in a preacher, the ultimate gauge is his commitment to God’s Word: to study it, understand it, preach it, and live it. Real change happens in his hearers’ hearts—and his own heart—as he consistently, continually expounds the Bible.
As I said before, whether or not a preacher approaches preaching this way is largely determined by how he views God’s Word. A man who understands Scripture’s sufficiency recognizes that anything worth saying—and worth hearing—must be securely anchored in the Bible. He has no authority to preach his own preferences or opinions but only what the Bible says. Since the Bible is God’s sufficient Word—and His only Word—the Bible alone forms the foundation for all God-glorifying preaching.
But don’t just take my word for it. Paul instructs Timothy the same way in 2 Timothy chapters 3 and 4. Verse 13 of chapter 3 speaks of the proliferation of “evil men and imposters” who will descend into greater and greater deceptions, both deceiving others and they themselves being deceived. Those being deceived are not those in the world, for they are already without the truth. These are those within the church who are being drawn away from the pure gospel, duped into believing another gospel.
Those who deceive are described in two ways. They are “evil men” and “imposters.” “Evil men” speaks of the outwardly wicked, who claim to be Christ-followers yet mock Him in their sinful lives. They are those who, like the Gnostics, deny that Christians must concern themselves with godliness. They rather excuse their sins, exempting themselves from the requirement to obey God’s law. They are outwardly evil while claiming to be true believers in Christ. “Imposters” speaks of those who assume a godly persona while failing to live out the true gospel. They are those who “have a form of godliness but deny its power.” They look good outwardly, but they have no spiritual life. These stumble to eternal destruction, dragging many others along with them.
What is Paul’s inspired antidote for this deceit? Biblicism. He encourages Timothy to continue in the things he had learned and been assured of, speaking of his own instruction to Timothy. He, a chosen representative of Christ, had taught Timothy the truth of the gospel, the very same truths that are recorded for our own benefit in the pages of the New Testament. The church is built on the foundation which the apostles and prophets laid, that being Christ. Christ is revealed to us in the New Testament through the apostles’ writings. These writings encapsulate the very truths Timothy would have heard directly from Paul’s own lips. Faithfulness to the apostles’ teaching protected Timothy from deceit.
This imperative to bind himself tightly to the Scriptures is further strengthened in verse 15. We discussed this verse earlier in connection to the fact that Scripture is sufficient to save (“able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”). I want to underline that Scripture is also sufficient to keep us connected to the vine. Paul points Timothy to the Holy Scriptures as that which not only is able to save us but is also able to keep us saved. As he stayed close to Scripture, he stayed close to Christ.
Likewise, our own perseverance is largely dependent on our faithfulness to God’s Word. Life divorced from the Bible leaves us susceptible to deceit and eventual destruction. But life built on the firm foundation guards our own hearts from wandering away from the true gospel. Scripture is a sufficient guardian from deceit. By this I don’t mean that Scripture is some good-luck charm that protects us. We can talk about it, hold it close, write it on our walls, and recite it in church, but none of those things will benefit us if we do not embrace the truth in our own hearts. The very truth of Scripture—held in the God-inspired words—is what protects our soul. We must know it, believe it, and embrace it.
If the Word is what guards us from deception, it is imperative that each believer know it. On this basis we see the importance of the regular preaching of the Word. If we want to persevere, we must know the gospel according to God—known only through the Bible.
While there are multiple ways of growing in the Scriptures, preaching is primary. Pastor, if you are not preaching the Word, you are not providing your people what they need to hold fast to Christ. They may be able look somewhere else to find what they need, but you have failed to do what God has called you to—feed the flock. If you can do nothing else in your pastoral ministry, do this. Preach the Word!
Paul is emphatic about this in 2 Timothy 4:2. “Preach the Word!” Don’t preach your morals, your ideals, your plans, your agenda, your opinions, your concerns, your felt-needs. Preach the Word! This summons to Timothy echoes to all who have been called to preach. Be ready at all times to proclaim God’s Word. Apply it. Convince people to believe the truth of your chosen biblical text. Rebuke those you know are in sin. Exhort your people to faithfulness. Bear with them patiently, remembering your own weaknesses. Teach them so they know the truth in their minds and are well equipped to live out God’s Word.
In verse 3, Paul returns to a previous theme. There are those coming into the church who want nothing to do with God’s Word. They don’t want doctrine, they don’t want truth, they don’t want theology, but rather want to fashion their own idea of who Christ is. They will “heap up for themselves teachers…according to their own desires.” Men will reject the Word of God for a truth that is more palatable, more enjoyable, more comfortable. God’s truth will be set aside for an attractive truth that fits our idea of who God is, or who we are, or what the gospel is. Men will look for other authorities, other teachers, other sources of truth, other guides that tell them what they want to hear, not what God has said. They will search diligently for another truth rather than searching the Scriptures diligently to know God’s truth.
In contrast, all faithful Christians moor themselves to God’s Word, as Timothy did. And they look for others who will help them understand Scripture. It’s important for us to notice that the false teachers are not distinguished by their un-biblical doctrine as much as by their extra-biblical doctrine. They aren’t necessarily teaching things that are directly opposed to Scripture, just things that are in addition to Scripture. False teachers don’t often oppose Scripture, they simply set it on the shelf to gather dust. And their teachings aren’t often aggressively juxtaposed to clear biblical doctrine. Rather, they introduce ideas that are foreign to Scripture while neglecting to teach what Scripture does say. We need to be watchful of this kind of novel Christianity that actually undermines the gospel.
The solution is clear. The Christian preserves authentic Christianity by holding to God’s Word alone. The preacher propagates God-honoring doctrine by proclaiming God’s Word alone. Unavoidably, false teachers will come. But the best counter-move is the simple preaching of the Lord’s inspired Scriptures. God’s methods are not always ornate. Paul calls it the “foolishness of the message preached.” Yet it is the Word—and the Spirit working through the Word—that saves souls. And it is the Word that saves that also preserves souls from deceit and eternal destruction.
Just as Timothy dealt with those who deceived the flock of God, drawing many away from the truth, we are fraught with false teachers who distort the gospel, who corrupt it, subtract from it, and add to it. Yet our calling is the same: Preach the Word! Or for those who don’t stand in the pulpit: Know the Word! Our highest obligation as Christians is to know the true God as He has revealed Himself.
And that is, of course, our goal in this process. We don’t seek purity for its own sake. We don’t guard against deceit simply for self-preservation. We seek biblical doctrine because only if our perceptions of God are shaped by Scripture will we know the true God. Any God other than the One clearly revealed in Scripture is a false God. We seek Him, so we seek the Word. Our deepest desire to know God personally is expressed in a diligent commitment to His Word alone to lead us to Him. His Word is sufficient, and through that very Word, we can know our God. So we preach the Word, that we may know the God of the Word, and through that knowledge, love Him wholeheartedly and obey Him diligently.